Is home automation going to cause hacker's heaven?

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I have a massive interest in these things. But it is only an interest. I don’t own any home automation devices (other than “normal” house security).

My main issue with them is the platform is very young. Changing quickly, and no standard for security of this new network. For example:
It would be all too easy to see if someone was actually in a house by hacking the “lights” network and turning them off from outside. Then waiting to see how quickly they come back on.
As such, makes a burglars job much easier, and less risky.

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I don’t know what the possibilities of this happening with a voice assistant is, but if you control everything with your phone they’d need to get to your phone in order to controll everything.

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Oh, voice control… You know those adverts of Amazon’s that advertise how great Alexa is by giving you a demonstration?
If you have an Echo in the room when the advert comes on, it does what the advert asks…
Same if a radio present gives it an instruction when you have a radio on (that isn’t being played through Echo).

How annoying is that?!

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ROFL!!! :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: Hilarious. I don’t think Burger King appreciates that.

I am not yet a fan of the automation. I do not have anything automated in my house as yet

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well more and more money is being dropped into research regarding defense against these attacks. One day their might even be cyber police that will get cyber warrants to hack into a persons computer and then physically arrest them. Also a self defense software could be developed, where when an unknown attack is detected is hacks the person forwarding all of their information to the Police.

I really see no point in hacking a toaster and changing is code to cause it to overheat, that seems too time consuming. Why not just hack credit cards transferring money into bitcoin and sending it overseas to other countries where Police have no authority? Why not use their money to buy hundreds of Powercore+ 20100 so you can roll around in Anker batteries knowing you have Unlimited power?

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The example of hacking a toaster, true if it we’re done as you said, a hack for a specific toaster has little to gain, but what if you emailed the maker of the toaster saying you’d hack them all to force the maker to pay a substantial sum? So “pay me $1M or your brand value will plummet due to hundreds or thousands of household fires”.

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For those of us that are fine with the threats Nigel mentioned, here is what Eufy is planning on releasing by the end of the year. What are you most excited for?

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agreed. if you’re buying these things it means you probably know the risk.

I see ransomware attacks holding our food hostage in our future :smirk:

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Lol Not the beer!

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If I could provide an opinion from the flip side…
I’m a forgetful person, always wondering if I left a light on when I leave the house. Hacking aside, home automation is definitely an OCDer’s heaven as all my lights are automatically turned off and the alarm is enabled when I leave the house. :smile:

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Sounds like an Alzheimer’s accelerator.

“I don’t need to concentrate if I locked the door, or turned a light off, I can let my brain cells die and use this app”.

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What are the risks beside someone playing with your lights?

The risk is a function of automation. If you only automate lights, then the risk is someone can only control your lights. If you automate power sockets then you risk someone can control what that power socket controls.

I agree, only time will tell…:joy:

Ever heard of Stuxnet? If you have a vague interest in how hacking can effect physical things it is well worth reading about. But in short Stuxnet is a “worm” computer virus that effected only a specific model of lab equipment that control centrifuges for separating nuclear material.
When it found out it was connect to one of these centrifuges it would very cleverly cause the physical centrifuge to explode.

Now yes, this is taking it to the extreme. But it it shows how computer hacking can do physical harm, with the potential to harm humans.

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Sound like a good read. I’ll check it out.